from what I understand of Crossfit, it is common to do olympic lifts for time, either against a clock, against other people or trying to beat your previous record. the olympic lifts are technical and NOT appropriate for conditioning purposes, as crossfit seems to use them. you want to do them when you're fresh and focused. so i would say if your crossfit location does this-- then it is unsafe

At the end of the day Crossfit is no safer than any other variation of weight lifting, whether this be Olympic lifting, bodybuilding, powerlifting or just working out to stay in shape. I would bet that a large majority of people who get injured can attribute that to a particular reason RATHER than Crossfit itself, eg not being warmed up, poor technique etc etc.

I'm not really for or against Crossfit, I'm pretty impartial. But it's promoting weight training, CV conditioning and getting people up off their butts and doing some good hard physical exercise, and in today's society that can only be a good thing.

PMvegan wrote:from what I understand of Crossfit, it is common to do olympic lifts for time, either against a clock, against other people or trying to beat your previous record. the olympic lifts are technical and NOT appropriate for conditioning purposes, as crossfit seems to use them. you want to do them when you're fresh and focused. so i would say if your crossfit location does this-- then it is unsafe

You'd be hard-pressed to find a facility that isn't making their clients do olympic lifts. This is where it comes into play that people SHOULD make sure that their Crossfit facility has someone who is USAWA certified in teaching proper form on olympic lifting to clients and that it's not left to someone who may well have no idea what they're doing. It doesn't take more than one light barbell snatch that drifts too far backward without the shoulders fixing the bar in place properly before a rotator cuff can blow out, so obviously, the better the technique, the better off trainees will be.

It isn't that one can't do the o-lifts safely without having proper coaching (I never got hurt doing them with my crappy technique even when going for max lifts), but since Crossfit tends to throw people right into the fire and then put them under pressure by making them race against the clock, it can be a recipe for disaster when a novice lifter is trying to make 20 snatches in 90 seconds because he doesn't want to fail on his WOD.

Ideally, anyone who will do the o-lifts would have at least a few weeks of coaching on building ideal technique, but that's counter-productive to the general mission of Crossfit's intense atmosphere of "train hard, train fast", which is why the injury potential is greatly increased.

"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

I'd say do it if you enjoy it, but be very very careful, listen to your body and be sure not to over train. I tried it once and never went back. I wasn't to fit at the time and didn't wanna go too hard too soon and become injured and/or discouraged.

The four rounds + 50 push ups for timeI did it in 17:35 - slow for me but OH squats are hard for me technically so I am coached to do them slower to get them right.

When I started I hadn't trained at all in about 18 months. My deadlift has gone up 80lbs, my squat went up 60lbs in our recent "30 days of squats" super compensation set and I've gone from literally a 15lb snatch to 73lbs in 6 months. I get in, I get out, I get stronger. Not for everyone I'm sure - like I said earlier it's the wild west out there with the box coaches and credentials - but if you do your homework you can find a good box! (I'll get off my soap box now I clearly drank the kook-aid!)